Forming a US LLC from India

US ownership

100%

US visit or SSN needed to form

No

Home-country regime

FEMA Overseas Investment framework — classification and reporting confirmed through your AD Category-I bank before you remit

Formation Complete

$399

The sheet in one view

Forming the LLC is a state filing: Articles of Organization, a registered agent in the formation state, and a fee that in the three states surveyed below runs from $125 to $300. None of it requires a US address of your own, a US visit, or a US tax number. The EIN follows on paper (fax, phone or mail — the online assistant is closed to an applicant with no US residence). What makes the Indian sheet different is not the formation. It is the money's round trip: capital out of India into a foreign entity you control, and income back. Both directions run through India's foreign-exchange law, administered by your bank. Read § 2 before you move a rupee.

What India asks of you

Overseas investment by persons resident in India is governed by the Foreign Exchange Management (Overseas Investment) Rules, 2022 — notified by the Government of India on 22 August 2022 — together with the Reserve Bank's Overseas Investment Regulations, 2022 and its Master Direction on Overseas Investment (FED Master Direction No. 15/2024-25). In that framework a US LLC is a foreign entity: an entity formed or incorporated outside India that has limited liability. The Master Direction carries a dedicated part for overseas investment by resident individuals, and it routes reporting through a designated Authorised Dealer Category-I bank — your AD bank — which performs the due diligence and reports the investment to the Reserve Bank.

Two published figures frame the individual's position. Under the Liberalised Remittance Scheme (LRS), a resident individual may remit up to USD 250,000 per financial year (April–March) for any permitted current or capital account transaction, through an Authorised Dealer, with a PAN mandatory for LRS transactions. And the Master Direction records that resident individuals may make overseas portfolio investment within that overall LRS limit under Schedule III of the Overseas Investment Rules.

Where this sheet stops — read this before relying on anything above. Whether your subscription to a newly formed US LLC that you wholly own and operate is treated under the Rules as overseas direct investment, what reporting attaches to it at the time of investment and annually thereafter, and how the remittance must be coded, are classification questions the published framework answers through the AD bank's process — not questions a formation sheet can settle for an individual reader, and the Reserve Bank's publications do not give a founder a self-serve ruling for this exact fact pattern. So this page does not assert that forming and funding your LLC is automatically permitted, automatically within LRS, or report-free. The sequence that the framework does support is: form nothing and remit nothing until your AD bank has confirmed, in writing, (1) how your investment is classified, (2) what it will report and what identification number it will allot for the foreign entity — the Master Direction notes that allotment of that Unique Identification Number does not itself constitute Reserve Bank approval — and (3) what you must file or furnish each year the entity exists, and what happens when income or sale proceeds come back. An AD bank that cannot answer those three questions is the wrong AD bank for this transaction.

One further cost sits on the remittance itself: tax collected at source can apply to LRS remittances under section 206C of the Income-tax Act, collected by the AD bank. Rates and thresholds in that section have changed with successive budgets, so this sheet prints no rate — confirm the current position with your AD bank and on the Income Tax Department's site (incometaxindia.gov.in) in the month you remit.

Choosing the state from India

Indian founders in this Atlas most often survey three states, for three different reasons. Florida ($125 to form, $138.75 a year in annual-report duty) is the low-friction default: a simple annual report due by May 1 and no state-level surprise. Texas ($300 to form, no Secretary of State annual report) suits founders who want the recurring state duty reduced to the Comptroller's franchise-tax and Public Information Report each May 15 — a report that is paperwork-only below the no-tax-due threshold the Texas dossier records. New York ($200 to form, a $9 biennial statement) is chosen when the business genuinely trades on a New York presence — and carries the state's newspaper-publication requirement after formation, priced and explained on its dossier, which is why this Atlas does not recommend it on fee alone. If your reading keeps landing on Wyoming or Delaware, those two states are not sold here: they are surveyed by specialists, and the specialist route explains the handoff. Puerto Rico is not served by this Atlas.

The EIN from India

Your LLC needs its own Employer Identification Number, and you do not need an SSN or an ITIN first. The IRS's routes for an applicant whose principal place of business is outside the United States are: by phone on 267-941-1099 (not toll-free, Monday–Friday 6 a.m.–11 p.m. Eastern — that window is 4:00 p.m. to 9:30 a.m. India time the following day during US standard time, so plan the call for your evening), by fax to 304-707-9471 from outside the US (855-215-1627 from within it), or by mail to the IRS's EIN International Operation in Cincinnati. Fax returns the number generally within four business days when a return fax number is provided; mail takes approximately four weeks; and a new EIN can take up to two weeks to pass the IRS's TIN-matching systems even though it is usable immediately for a bank account, licences and paper returns. On Form SS-4, the responsible party is you — the individual who ultimately owns or controls the company — and line 7b reads “foreign” where that person has no SSN or ITIN and is not eligible for one. The reference depth lives with our sister library: REF A-1 — EIN basics (EIN for Non-Residents) and REF B-2 — application routes, compared; the worked, filled-form specimens live at The Form, Annotated (EIN Without SSN). One EIN per responsible party per day, by any route — do not fax and phone the same application.

Funding the LLC and moving money

Fund the company the way § 2 says the framework is built: through your AD bank, as an overseas investment, coded as the AD directs — not as a gift, a travel remittance, or card spending, none of which describes buying equity in your own foreign company. Keep the AD's paperwork with your formation documents; it is the Indian half of your paper trail, and the story of the money will be asked again — by the US bank that onboards the LLC, and in your Indian filings. Two questions for the AD bank before the first remittance: what annual reporting do I owe while the LLC exists (including a dormant year), and how are dividends or sale proceeds repatriated when they return? Get both answers in writing. A chartered accountant who works on overseas-investment files is the right reviewer for your facts.

Getting paid

An LLC gives your customers a US company to contract with and pay; it does not mint a payment account. Banks and processors decide onboarding on their own published terms, examining the file — formation documents, the EIN confirmation, an operating agreement, a plain description of what the company does — and the owner's residence is part of that examination, not an obstacle the LLC removes. Our operability essays on the bank file and on Stripe and PayPal verification are in survey now and will be linked from this sheet when they publish; the banking-depth companion in this fleet is US Bank for Non-Residents, and the reference entry on how a bank verifies an EIN is REF E-2 (EIN for Non-Residents). Anyone who promises you a guaranteed Stripe account from India as part of a formation package is promising another company's decision. Do not pay for that promise.

The tax map in brief

A single-member LLC owned by a non-resident is disregarded for US federal income tax by default — and since 2017 that status carries an annual information filing: Form 5472 attached to a pro-forma Form 1120, reporting transactions with you, including your own funding of the company. The penalty the IRS states for a missing or late Form 5472 starts at $25,000. Multi-member LLCs file as partnerships instead. When a US payer needs your company's tax status documented, the form in the file is generally Form W-8BEN-E. The full reference treatment is REF D-1 — Form 5472 + pro-forma Form 1120; the founder-level tax map essay is in survey for this Atlas. None of this page is tax advice — it is the map of which questions exist, so none of them ambushes you in your second year.

Cost of ownership

New York's row excludes its one-time publication cost, which depends on the county of the registered office and is set out on the New York dossier. Compare five-year figures, not formation fees — and add your Indian-side compliance cost, which for a founder who must report annually at home can exceed the state duty.

Questions from Indian founders

Can a resident of India own 100% of a US LLC?

On the US side, yes — no state in this Atlas requires a US co-owner, citizen or resident. On the Indian side, your ownership is an overseas investment under the FEMA framework in § 2: classify and report it through your AD bank before you fund it.

Do I fund the LLC under LRS?

LRS is the published channel for a resident individual's permitted remittances — up to USD 250,000 per financial year through an Authorised Dealer. Whether your LLC subscription is processed under LRS with overseas-investment reporting attached, and what that reporting is, is the AD bank's classification to make in writing before you remit (§ 2). Do not let anyone code it as something it is not to make the form easier.

Do I need an ITIN to get the LLC's EIN?

No. The EIN is the company's number, applied for on Form SS-4 with “foreign” on line 7b when the responsible party has no SSN or ITIN and is not eligible for one (§ 4). An ITIN is a personal number for personal US filing duties; needing one later does not block the EIN now.

Will the LLC let me use Stripe from India?

The LLC gives you a US company with an EIN — the documents a processor asks for first. Whether Stripe onboards the company is Stripe's decision under its own published eligibility, which also weighs where the owner is based. Read § 6, and never buy a “guaranteed account” promise.

What do I owe each year?

In the US: the state duty for your formation state (table above), the $149 agent renewal from year 2 if you stay with us, and the federal information filing for your structure (§ 7). In India: whatever annual reporting your AD bank's classification requires — which is why § 2 insists you obtain it in writing before the first remittance, not after the first year-end.

Sources: Reserve Bank of India — Master Direction on the Liberalised Remittance Scheme (USD 250,000 per financial year; PAN requirement), https://rbi.org.in/SCRIPTS/BS_ViewMasDirections.aspx?id=10192 · Master Direction on Overseas Investment, FED Master Direction No. 15/2024-25 (foreign-entity definition; resident-individual part; designated AD bank reporting; UIN allotment is not approval), rbi.org.in · Foreign Exchange Management (Overseas Investment) Rules, 2022, Government of India Notification No. G.S.R. 646(E) dated 22 August 2022 · Income-tax Act s. 206C position to be confirmed at incometaxindia.gov.in · IRS — “Employer Identification Number” and Instructions for Form SS-4 (Rev. December 2025), irs.gov · Instructions for Form 5472 (penalty), irs.gov · State fees and duties: data/state-fees.json, verified against official state sources 2026-11-03/04. Surveyed 2026-11-05. Education, not advice: this sheet is formation information, not FEMA, legal or tax advice.